


Beyond Horizon

by AceQueenKing



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 16:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4883386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Horizon was never the beginning, but neither was it the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond Horizon

  
The truth is that Kaidan is wrong: Their relationship does not die on Horizon.   
  
It dies before she does, buried under awkward glances and dirty little secrets.   
  
It dies when she cannot kiss him in triumph as Sovereign goes down; it ends when they spend their brief yet miserable shore leave apart because all too many important people will suspect  _something_  if they spend it together .   
  
It does not die because they stop caring; she never stops admiring Kaidan’s heart, his passion. She never stops feeling the twisting knife in her stomach when he walks by her, but slowly the emotions change: where once there was excitement, now there is fear.   
  
There is a bomb on their heads after Ilos, slowly counting down. How long until they are found out? How long until one of them – or both of them –is given a dishonorable discharge ?   
  
Their love becomes ash  _(oh, and how she misses Ash)_  when she sees the guilt in Kaidan’s eyes; burns to nothing as they hastily stuff themselves into an equipment room for a kiss, a kiss that tastes like soot and rain and Virmire. Virmire is what she sees in his eyes when they hastily part away from one another as if they were burned; she sees an explosion and Ash’s sacrifice and Saren madly proselytizing for an agonizing future she does not want. What’s worse is the guilt she feels when she thinks maybe it would be easier if Kaidan had been the one who died.   
  
_(In hindsight, this, she thinks, is when she should have known it was over.)_

In truth, their love affair dies the very moment Sovereign does, in the second she sees that they are _heroes_ now and there’s no way that either of them will ever escape the watchful eyes of Anderson and Udina and the Council and the universe.   
  
It just takes them longer to notice.   
  
Horizon is a wake-up call, but it was never the end.   
  
That was long before.   
  
\- - -   
  
It takes her a long time to realize that she is in love with Garrus.   
  
The first clue she receives is the increased heartbeat she gets the second Archangel lifts his mask and reveals a familiar face. He’s tired and dying, but just the right side of dead, and it’s all right, because she’s barely better. It’s in the way that Garrus is the first person to treat her as _her_ , unconditionally; none of Tali’s skepticism or Jacob and Miranda’s personality quizzes. Garrus sees her, gets her from day one. It’s enough to make her cheeks blush long before she realizes what that means.   
  
The second clue comes a few hours later, in the way her stomach jackknifes when he goes down in a sea of blue blood, his hands still reaching for his gun. She is a one-woman medical team; Jacob and Miranda stand, hands folded at their sides, wanting to leave him and she votes no, he has to make it, he  _has_  to.   
  
It’s in the way she’s happy when he does make it, the way her heart beats a bit faster when he points out how some women consider scars attractive. She has an errant thought that maybe they do suit him, one that bothers her, but is easily brushed aside to talk to him for the first time since her unexpected demise.   
  
Late at night, it is not so easily dismissed; she has dreams of tracing those scars with her fingers, with her tongue.   
  
She wonders what he tastes like.   
  
_(This craving –in hindsight –is the beginning, but it takes her a long time to see that.)_  
  
Her feelings for Garrus change; where once he was her student, her protégé, now he is her friend, her rudder in the endless storm that is her second life.   
  
He is her tireless defender on Horizon; fiercely protecting her against a suddenly holier-than-thou Kaidan. When Kaidan  _sneers_  that he’s true to their people and that Shepard is the enemy, it’s Garrus who vibrates with anger, Garrus who squeezes her hand tight and tells her  _you were better than that anyway ._  
  
As the countdown to her love affair with Kaidan reaches zero and detonates  _(Just like Ash, burning burning burning to stop a mad man’s desperate prayer),_ it’s Garrus who shields her from the fall out, a hand on her back the whole time.   
  
And it’s Garrus who sticks with her long afterward, the one who holds her hand as she laments the death of a relationship long since dead.   
  
Horizon is a wake-up call, but it was never the beginning.   
  
That came long after.   
  
\- - -   
  
Eventually, she notices.   
  
Her heart starts beating for the first time in this strange, second life the moment when she leads him away from Sidonis and death and destruction and he listens, not because he is her subordinate but because he respects her. She walks away with two lives saved instead of one, and it’s the best feeling, the best day in a universe so full of bad ones.   
  
This is the moment she knows.   
  
But it is not the moment he does. Instead, they play an odd game of cat and mouse. Both of them stand with their hands to the flame, but pull them back before they burn; Garrus says things that  _might_  be flirting and might be simple, harmless jokes; she leans on him but does not dare to do more. Their conversations take on a harried tone, as if they’re too busy imaging what each other looks like naked to actually keep up even the pretense of a conversation.   
  
Garrus is a growing ache in her bones, so strong that it is unbearable, but one she can’t live without, even as the blood pools in her ears.   
  
Then, at last, Garrus ignites himself as he offers her a story – r _each and flexibly and tiebreakers_. And she finally says it, and he agrees, and oh, they are burning now, but this is not an explosion. This is a low, simmering flame.   
  
Horizon was never the beginning.   
  
But neither was it the end. 

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Celestialwanderer on Tumblr for a word prompt challenge.
> 
> The word was **Anagapesis** : _(n)_ falling out of love; the feeling of not loving someone or something once loved.
> 
> Thanks, as always, to [buhnebeest](http://archiveofourown.org/users/buhnebeest).


End file.
